For a lot of people concealed carrying a small .380 ACP pistol is the only thing that makes sense. The guns are small, light weight, and can be easily tucked into a pocket holster and appear as a wallet or cell phone from the outside. The pocket .380 is the king of deep concealment guns. The new Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0 redefines the category of pocket pistol – but there are a couple things you should know about it before pulling the trigger on a new pocket cary pistol. MSRP: $399.99 - Sportsman Outdoor Superstore - Palmetto State Armory
The .380 ACP pistol heritage
For a long time – the pocket .380 was dominated by Ruger with their spin on the KelTec P3AT and Smith & Wesson answered with their Bodyguard. The problem with the original bodyguard was that it featured a single column magazine with an internal hammer fired mechanism that made the trigger difficult to manage and stabilizing the gun in hand through the trigger pull to fire an accurate shot was tough – but if you were able to manage it – the hot spots of the small flat grip punished your hand with recoil – which didn’t make sense given the fact that .380 ACP is basically the smaller weaker brother of 9mm.
Ruger – realizing the problems with their design – launched the LCP2 – a slightly fatter version of the LCP that was much more comfortable to shoot, which eventually lead to the LCP MAX – keeping roughly the same size of the LCP2 but giving up the single stack magazine for a double stack magazine – increasing capacity from 6 rounds to 10 without the footprint changing much.
Smith & Wesson is now following suit and have introduced the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0. Apparently, guns are like software in Smith & Wesson land and we just put versions on the slide. The Bodyguard 2.0 is – in many respects – category redefining because unlike all of the predecessors in the space – the Bodyguard 2.0 is actually pleasant to shoot – which for a small light weight gun is quite an achievement.
Better Shooting By Design
The secret sauce to the Bodyguard 2.0’s success lies in the shape of it’s grip. Even the LCP2 is guilty of taking this flat design of the LCP and just making it slightly fatter and easing the edges slightly of the grip. The problem with the Max is it’s not shaped to fit in the web of a human hand – it’s like a furring strip from the hardware store – so as you squeeze it the two edges create hotspots on your palm. When you fire it – those hot spots kind of hammer the palm of your hand – making it a rather unpleasant experience.
The Bodyguard 2.0 – by contrast – elongated the grip slightly coming to a nice curve at front and back that match up with the joints on the fingers and allow the gun to seat deeply in the hand – making it very comfortable to hold. When you shoot the Bodyguard 2.0 it dumps the energy from recoil all across the palm where the gun naturally makes contact and makes it pleasant to shoot.
Couple the superior grip geometry of the Bodyguard 2.0 with the really decent texture on the grip and your firing hand stays put – allowing the shooter to control the gun properly. Along with that good geometry – Smith & Wesson redesigned the trigger – with a flat face trigger that breaks at about a 90 degree angle with the frame – promoting a straight to the rear trigger press. The trigger is incredibly easy to manage. And when the trigger does break – and recoil does happen – then something magic happens – it’s not a whole lot different from a small light weight .22LR pistol to shoot. It’s actually fun to shoot – which previously these pocket guns absolutely were not – except the Ruger LCP-22, which is a blast in it’s own right. The downside to this is that .380 ACP is expensive so a range trip can get very expensive very quickly because you’ll want to shoot this gun more and it’s truly fantastic to shoot. Well Appointed Features
The sights the Bodyguard 2.0 ships with are great in their own right as well – with a high visibility night sight out front and a blacked out rear sight that makes the tiny sight radius of the Bodyguard 2.0 seem manageable. I was able to connect with shots out to 25 yards on 8” steel plates pretty easily. Since the recovery on the gun recoiling is so manageable – the pace you’re able to shoot the gun confidently is pretty spicy for a gun so small. The slide has the fishscales style cuts of the recent M&P series of pistols which do well to rack the slide and the recoil spring in use is light enough that people with compromised hand strength can likely manipulate it without much issue. The slide does not include an optic cut – which in my opinion is the right call – the slide is already very narrow and no optics cut would natively fit and introducing width sort of defeats the purpose of a pocket carry gun. While I love red dots – I love the Bodyguard 2.0 doesn’t have red dot capability.
Included with the guns pretty modest sale price of $399.99 are two magazines – a 10 round flush fit baseplate magazine and a 12 round extended magazine which provides just a little bit more real estate for my size XL glove hands to get the pinky fully on the gun. That extra length in the grip does come with a cost however of making the gun taller and likely too tall for many pockets – but it does make range day just a little more fun.
There is a manual safety present on the gun that is a “chicklet” style safety that’s going to be difficult for people with big hands to treat like a 1911 safety. There is an extra rough texture on the safety providing great traction making it usable to the extent that it can be and both putting it on and sweeping it off are rewarded with a very heavy tactile click – meaning that it would be incredibly difficult to accidentally actuate the safety – either on or off. I personally won’t be using the gun’s safety beyond administrative functions for the gun as I could not reliably sweep it off presenting to target, but it makes sense to use while putting it into a holster then turning it off.
Ammo Performance
Norma MHP 85 grain hollow point high score - nearly 1120 feet per second!
I tested three loads through the pistol, a 95 grain Fiocchi FMJ round nose load, a Double Tap 90 grain JHP load, and a Norma 85 grain MHP (monolithic hollow point) load (note: save 7% with code "HUMB" at Optics Planet). I was able to shoot the Fiocchi and Norma loads over the chronograph ( a Garmin Xero C1 Pro – a fantastic chronograph). The Fiocchi load averaged just under 900 feet per second while the Norma MHP hollow point was able to push just over an average muzzle velocity of 1100 feet per second.
It's far from perfect
There were a couple down sides encountered with pistol – however – which should weigh into a decision on a gun like this. The first issue to be aware of is the magazines are a bit difficult to load – which is common for small double stack magazines. On the range I loaded magazines both by hand and through the assistance of a Maglula UpLula loader, and I’d highly recommend an UpLula if you aren’t using one because of the next issue I encountered.
While loading the 12-round magazine I noticed strong resistance to loading the mag after just 2-3 rounds – like the magazine was full. Pushing down on the magazine the problem became apparent – the follower inside the magazine was tilting during loading and it’s base was pushing out the magazine catch cut out in the magazine tube, preventing it from accepting more rounds.
I tried finessing the rounds down but that was stupid solution because the problem kept up while loading mags. So I took my stuck magazine with 2 -3 rounds loaded – put the UpLula on it and pushed down with one hand then pounded the top of the UpLula with my other hand until the magazine tube shaved off the offending corner of the follower. Now the magazine loads with no problem. This is an issue which will probably lead to a follower re-design on later models of the gun.
The other issue I had with my version of the Bodyguard 2.0 was the front sight was mounted off center in the dovetail at the front of the side. I was noticing – especially at 25 yards that my grouping was about 4-5 inches left on target. While grouping to the left for a right handed shooter is commonly a technique issue and not an equipment issue – I got curious and put a caliper on the front dovetail – sure enough the front sight was .5 mm to the right in the dovetail. This is easy enough fix with a punch and a hammer or a good sight pusher – but in the year 2024 it shouldn’t be on the end user to fix manufacturing issues.
While the nature of the issues were fairly minor – in the scheme of things – it does beg the question why Smith & Wesson didn’t address this during the design validation and testing phase before going to full production. Recent Smith & Wesson products seem plagued with these tiny missteps that prevent a good product from being great. Conclusion The Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 2.0 isn't perfect - but it's easily the best gun in the segment. You will ruin your ammo budget because it nearly shoots as softly as a .22LR and it's on the larger end of being pocket-able. It's easily my favorite .380 I have shot. Links above are affiliate links which generate a small commission to me at no added expense to you.